


Bad decisions: Navigated

by Cockzilla



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, antishipping?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 16:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7446742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cockzilla/pseuds/Cockzilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vriska, in the ravages of puberty, makes some insincere overtures towards her close neighbor. Equius recognizes Vriska's self destructive behavior and is surprisingly deft in his navigation of avoiding her paltry seduction technique and preserving their strange, unaffectionate friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad decisions: Navigated

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes its as fun for me to think about characters not working out as it is to think about them working out. And with characters that span a long, underutilized time frame, you can always still ship them later in their character arcs. Or un-ship them once they're better people!
> 
> Anyway, posted back before all characters and troll romance aspects were revealed,  
> and unbeta'd just like 90% of my fics are, and probably very typo messy.

She drummed her fingers on her desk without even thinking of it. Metallic clicks mingled with her occasional huff of breath to dust the messy room with sound. She’d been used to the coordination of the mechanical arm for weeks now, marveling at the way she could now shake oracular spheres for hours. She’d exhausted her list of questions, even the most mundane and silly ones. At least she now knew that a pirate hat would be an unwise investment. Troll pirates had rarely ever needed them except for the more ruthless ones that snuck about in the daylight. 

She had also exhausted her list of friends to FLARP with. The accident had gotten rid of her regulars, and many of the serious FLARPers who had yet eluded her grasp only strayed online in the wee hours of dawn. Her other hand pressed into her cheek, her eyes unfocusing as she stared at her dead and decaying trollslum. Terezi was online, and so was Karkat. But arguments only got her fired up, and in the middle of the night, there wasn’t much to do with any more pent up energy. She had too much as it was.  
Tavros was also online, but away. Probably playing that grubby Fiduspawn shit again. She could troll him, but he kept clamming up when she tried to rub his new condition in his face. It was like he was pretending she hadn’t even done anything to him. That was even more infuriating than an argument.  
Her mouse hovered over the name, her metal digits now stilled and drifting towards the keyboard, and her eyes back in focus at the screen.

Vriska stood up. She would go see what her lusus was up to. Things ran smoothly when the beast was well fed. She anxiously took the steps down to the web-encircled platform, sometimes taking two at once. She’d also gotten used to one-eyed depth perception, mainly by falling down said stairs a few times.  
When she reached the platform she was bathed in warm, damp air. Her lusus was napping to conserve energy, snoring as well as she could with her invertebrate respiratory system. Vriska felt the urge to pet her finally peaceful mother’s mandible, but quelled the dangerous thought. Her lusus loved a live meal, and had keen reflexes to prevent sleeping through the tantalizing death throws.  
The scene made her almost want lie down herself -sleep through the boredom of the empty night. But she cringed, her shoulders automatically shifting farther up into her mess of hair. Kanaya already had enough meddlesome interest in her, no need to become associated with those fictional day-walkers the virgo was obsessed with. She approached the window that framed her doomsday device. From that angle, she could see the full moon, feel the cool breeze filtering in. She could also see the lights in her neighbor’s window, shining low and steady without the flicker of any welding torch or the dancing shadows of an involved cage match. He was probably as bored as she was. He was not as easily frustrated at the injustices of life as she was, but stalking a ghost could dry up even his sweat glands.

Equius jolted awake, intact horn knocking a side panel loose from his computer monitor. The robot horn he’d been rewiring crumpled like foil in his hand. He threw it aside with little attention to it, memory racing back and reminding him of his vigil. She was so dedicated to whatever this cause from beyond was that there was no telling when she’d be online. Of course, she was so calm and austere now. He could feel the perspiration rebuilding at the base of his skull just trying to pin down something that would be important enough to troll her about. He almost didn’t want to sit there again, staring, frozen in front of his screen while she conducted business online, then promptly signed off. The perfect way a noble should use a computer, instead of running it until its cooling gland hissed and wheezed angrily at the prolonged lurking. Another rock hit his window and he flinched again, recognizing it as the trigger he had awoken to. He pushed himself up off his desk, acting like anything involving muscular activity was a chore. Sometimes even he condescended to roleplay like the commoners beneath him, but only when he was alone and unable to shame himself should he be doing it wrong. Trudging over to the window, he saw the only other troll of his age around for a large distance. He took a moment to notice her different style of dress before opening the window. Of course who was she to stop throwing stones until asked, so before she expertly flung another stone into his respite block, he leaned out, hair slickly following his motion a moment later.  
“VRISKA YOU ARE FAR TOO LOW ON THE SPECTRUM TO BE THE FIRST ONE THROWING STONES.”  
“I’M SOOOOOOOORRY, BUT I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS HARSH WIND! COULD YOU STOP BEING SUCH A WINDBAG AND GET DOWN HERE?”  
Equius retreated and rubbed at his temples as gently as possible. If she was going to stretch out her words in such a ‘cute’ manner he’d rather she wasn’t also screeching them. He crawled up onto the window ledge, back of shirt just lightly dragging against it in his crouched position, and launched himself forward.  
Vriska casually side-stepped out of his trajectory, watching with a mildly amused expression as he rolled away along the ground, his hair flying out and flapping against the dirt like a limp flag. He easily stood up from his curled position, walking back over to Vriska while meticulously dusting himself off.  
“Wow, there has goooooooot to be a more classy way to exit your exclusive little tower.”  
“This strength is the right a of a true royal. No reason not to use it when one can.”  
“Good to know you feel that way!”  
She punctuated the statement by shifting her weight and canting her hips at a new angle. Equius took notice of the metal frisbee in her robotic hand, the light gray shorts, and following the legs down like arrows, the picnic laid out clumsily beneath her.  
“-Because we’re going to have some fuuuuuuuun!”  
She handed him the disk: it was heavy enough to actually feel like something in his hands.  
“I suppose a spot of athletics and taking in some moonlight would be appropriate for a blueblood...”  
Hidden behind his cracked shades, he allowed himself a shameful glance up at his window, soft computer light emanating from it.  
“... with enough leisure time.”

Vriska grabbed onto the hurtling discus with her robotic hand, her sneakers skipping against the barren ground before she set them apart. Her legs locked in an A, she skidded to a quicker stop, the heavy disk finally falling to gravity and into the support of her grip. She let go with one hand to tuck her hair behind a horn, looking back over her shoulder sneakily at the far away figure that was her neighbor. All of the frantic running she’d been doing in pursuit of the toy had her hair constantly flying into her limited vision, and had her breathing hard and open mouthed. But most of all, it had her mind off her future FLARP predicament, as she liked to keep it labeled. No more rounds would be fun practice with friends, just deadly gambits to get more food for her caretaker. But that was just a moment of thought, one flash of synapse and then back to spinning her body to get enough momentum to cross the span between her and Equius. She let the disk fly, sparks flying from its fleeting contact with the groves of her new fingers. It ascended slowly against the muddy early morning sky, growing marginally smaller until it easily met with Equius’s stern grip.  
But that wasn’t Vriska’s concern, her eyes still focusing on the clouds. They were lighter than when they had started goofing around, when, over an hour ago?! She laughed as she looked up from her blackberry at the disk flying on, no signs of stopping soon, yards to her right. She wasn’t even going to bother watching where it fell. Time was growing short.  
Equius watched, confused, as Vriska almost skipped across the field of dirt, tiny plumes of it disturbed by each eager step. She wasn’t holding her frisbee, so what had her in such a good mood. He thought about it as she fought her momentum and won, panting and holding onto her knees next to him, and he felt close to a grin himself.   
“Come on, let’s dig in!”  
He flared out his hand and opened his mouth, but she caught his confusion before he could launch it.  
“You knoooooooow, the picnic I set up? Soon enough it’ll be day, better get on that.”  
Equius cast a scathing look at Vriska and past her, to the scant picnic blanket and the pile of eightballs stacked up on it. He knew them to be part of her sylladex, but they didn’t make for the most appetizing display. He followed her towards it, at a leisurely pace with his hands tucked into his pockets. Truly a common thing to do but it didn’t feel like a big issue at the moment.  
“Beautiful spot you’ve picked for it, too...”  
The sarcasm oozing from his statement was obvious and Vriska’s eyes narrowed as the implications set in. She flopped down, seeming boneless from all the exercise, and sat on the blanket at the edge of the cliff. She looked away from Equius as he sat down, out towards the mountains where light was just beginning to hover on the edge of their silhouettes.  
“Hmph! You think I’d be so repetitive?”  
She cracked open an eightball, revealing a sandwich cut diagonally. She took one half, gesturing with it for him to take the other. He reluctantly picked it up, he fingers instantly pinching the soft bread and meats flat. It was missing a skewer, a handy invention for a more tidy eating experience. No one could make a sandwich quite like Aurthour.  
“Besiiiiiiiides, its not like I have to go to any lengths to piss you off.”  
“Try to be more refined with your language, Vriska.”  
“Seeeeeeee?”  
She was watching him out of the far corner of her remaining eye. He spared her a condescending glare before finishing off his sandwich. Somehow they had the same thing in mind when they sat down, facing towards the horizon that would soon reveal a harsh display of light.  
Vriska, upon finishing her sandwich blindly reached from another black globe. It yielded a watermelon, at which Equius began to protest.  
“I hope you know which ball contains the silverware and the plates. Which one is the one containing handkerchiefs?!”  
Vriska fell into a fit of laughter, wheezing after the exertion of the day. She rolled the melon over to Equius, breaking down again at the perplexed expression he was offering it. He tapped at the surface in confusion, making a few deep dents in the rind.   
“What exactly do you expect me to do with this?”  
“HahahahaHaha-Ha...ha... Okay I know it’s beneath you but won’t you need to clean filth off you after all this exertion anyway? Besiiiiiiiides, you said you should use your strength whenever appropriate.”  
“I doubt this is even-”  
“Just crack it open, geeeeeeeeze!”  
Equius gave her a grimace, getting a smirk back, and picked up the fruit. He pressed his finger in the center and pulled, the two halves tearing apart like wet paper. Pulp and juice spilled out from the fissure onto Equius and the blanket. He made a sickened noise deep in his throat, but Vriska just continued to cackle at his expense as she snatched one of the ends of the watermelon out of his hand.  
“Just enjoy -mph- the hedonism -mpth- of eating it like this. You’re already messy now.”  
He noticed she was not sloppily stuffing her face with the metal hand he’d made her. Good. She was at least taking care of the thing, not getting the sticky juice into its joints and circuits.  
But she made the most carefree show of digging her hand straight into the pulpy center of the melon, scooping up handfuls, then licking the extra scraps from between her fingers.  
Equius started to tentatively copy her actions, through trying to keep a bit more decorum to his actions. As long as he looked more stately than she did, he would give in to this messy style of eating. Especially with how delicious Vriska’s eagerness was making it look.  
And it was refreshing, having run about in the moonlight for so long and having none of his lusus’s expertly prepared milk to replenish him. Soon enough he was shoveling down the mush his hands made of the fruit at a pace rivaling Vriska’s.  
She looked up, having finished off what she want of the fruit, and immediately went back to laughing. Equius creased his eyebrows at her over the rim of the rind, his face buried in the bowl it made.  
“Woooooooow Equius, you really love that watermelon. Should I go ahead and declare you and it matesprits?”  
He threw the remains aside, growling sloppily between missing teeth and tensing as he rose to a standing position. Vriska stood to follow him, mirroring his flippant treatment of trash.  
“Okay okaaaaaaaay, here! I didn’t know we’d be needing napkins this badly.”  
Equius was momentarily confused by her movements until she took off and handed him her grey over-shirt. He looked her over, seeing her for the first time in a while without all the loose layers of her normal clothes.  
She sat back down and he followed slowly, wiping the watermelon and sweat from his face and neck. She smirked at his expression, hitting him on his shoulder.   
“So, Mr. Regal, notice anything ........ different?”  
He angled himself back towards the impending sunrise, breaking eye contact between them.  
“Yes. You’re certainly getting taller.”  
“Oh? and noooooooothing else?”  
She had crawled in front of him, leaning in and getting in his personal space. Her hair fell forward from where she had tucked it behind her horns, brushed lightly on his arms, and further cast her face in a suspicious shadow.  
“You ... You are certainly growing into a form befitting your blood.”  
“Good thing you don’t hate it, else I’d have to hold it against you.”  
She was close enough now he could see her scar of an eye mirroring the other’s expressions behind its mat glass. He wondered if she could see the frantically calculating expression behind his black frames.  
This was a dangerous girl.  
He was in a dangerous situation.  
“No, it’s quite nice in fact. It almost makes up for the uncouth manner you have speaking to me.”  
Then her head fell to his chest, forehead pressing at his sternum, and he heard her mumble as she fell into a slanted sitting position in his lap.  
“Great, just great ........ Then I wish it would stay like it was, if it makes me harder to hate .... Can’t even get you to hate me ....”  
He paused awkwardly in the middle of reaching out to comfort her and calling her on her disgraceful conduct. But he knew what it was like to dislike his own body for being oddly unsuited to his personality, so he settled on lightly placing a gloved hand low in the mess of her black hair. He assumed it felt like a bear hug.  
Equius felt at the strands of hair as they worked their way in between his fingers. He found himself imagining what if those tresses were more wavy, curly even. What if the figure leaning on him was a low blood, with a lot more restraint and decorum than the current one.  
She muttered something about not acting very classy, and he laughed a little to agree. But the morning had been fun, and no one knew how trashy they had acted, so he would allow it to go un-reprimanded for once.   
“Vriska, look.”  
She felt his arm raise and point, and her head followed it’s motion, her claw horn’s points catching lightly in the material of Equius’s wifebeater. She was too relaxed to raise her head, but she watched, face pressed into him, as the sun rose and made his pointing hand a stark black shape against the bright white star.   
“Yeah, that’s what we were waiting for.”

When both of them were sweating from the sun’s heat, they both agreed to call it a day and head in. Vriska stood and stared with disgust at the sticky picnic blanket.  
“I’ll have Aurthour clean it up later. No need dirtying our hands with this paltry task.”  
From his tone, he was actually making a joke about the mess. It was amazing what good spirits could do to a troll. Vriska made a note to never be so happy around people she didn’t trust again. Just because it had worked out safely this time didn’t mean it was proven safe forever.

They both reached their rooms to find a nasty surprise on their monitors. Seems they had been in demand by the most elusive of trolls during their two hour sabbatical. Their rage, given a physical presence, could have outshone the sun now blazing outside their windows. Needless to say they didn’t talk to each other for weeks.


End file.
